Do climate conferences make a difference?
The Inquiry
BBC
4.6 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 28 October 2021
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
COP 26 is just around the corner and expectations are high that nations commit to reduce CO2 emissions. Global temperature rises are set to exceed levels at which things could get much worse and so the question is extremely urgent. But three decades since countries first came together to tackle environmental concerns, the pandemic may limit what can be achieved.
Presented by Tanya Beckett Researcher: Natasha Fernandes Editor: Richard Vadon
(Image: Street artists paint a mural on a wall opposite the COP26 climate summit venue in Glasgow: Photo by Andy Buchanan/AFP via Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the inquiry with me, Tanya Beckett, one question for expert witnesses and an answer. |
| 0:14.0 | On November the 1st, thousands of VIPs from the climate world will descend on the Scottish City of Glasgow. |
| 0:22.0 | For International Climate Conference, COP26. |
| 0:26.0 | Among them will be negotiators, representatives from NGOs, ministers and even heads of state. |
| 0:37.0 | COP26 organisers expect to have 25,000 delegates participating across the whole event. |
| 0:45.0 | But with the huge cost both in terms of money and carbon footprint, |
| 0:50.0 | the concern often aired is whether these gatherings are the best way of going about tackling the climate crisis at all. |
| 0:58.0 | So this week on the inquiry, we're asking, do international climate conferences make a difference? |
| 1:11.0 | Part 1. Where it all began. |
| 1:21.0 | The huge nature of this, the political circus of this, started off fairly slowly. |
| 1:27.0 | But as more and more people got concerned about climate change, more and more people started showing up at these conferences. |
| 1:34.0 | And today climate change conferences are the biggest conference that the UN system holds. |
| 1:41.0 | You're bigger than everything else. |
| 1:44.0 | The beginning of the climate conference story is in 1992, when Rio de Janeiro played host to 30,000 people from all over the world who were attending the Earth Summit. |
| 1:59.0 | It was at that time the largest gathering of world leaders that had ever taken place, with over 170 countries showing up. |
| 2:09.0 | The agenda was very broad, the environment and how it was being damaged as economies grew. |
| 2:18.0 | Our first expert witness is Pam Chasic, professor of political science at Manhattan College in New York. |
| 2:26.0 | By bringing in heads of state they could have big signing ceremonies for signing these treaties, |
| 2:32.0 | which hopefully would then set them on path to very quick ratification, which means they'll enter into legal force much quicker. |
| 2:40.0 | And they did. And so the Earth Summit set the scene for really the last almost 30 years of environmental policy. |
| 2:50.0 | During the 90s it was becoming increasingly clear that global temperatures were going up and that countries around the world would need to urgently reduce emissions of carbon dioxide to stop the rise. |
| 3:09.0 | The Earth Summit in Rio offered a template for how international climate talks could work. |
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